For years following the development of Little Rock's River Market, those hopeful that downtown's revitalization would spread often spoke of "turning the corner" down Main Street.
Jackhammers and other heavy equipment hard at work along the corridor confirm that -- at long last -- that day has arrived. And the revitalization of Little Rock's Main Street brings with it a sense of renewal and hope for the future as a new day dawns in downtown with several renovation projects underway.
"Even as a kid when I visited downtown I always wondered why Main Street was empty," says David Robinson, 35, a managing director with Reed Realty Advisors.
Robinson and business partner Josh Blevins, director of special development projects for Reed Realty, are overseeing the restoration and rehabilitation of several Main Street buildings, including three in the western block between Capitol Avenue and Sixth Street from south to north: the Arkansas Building, which was originally the circa 1898 Pfeifer Brothers Department Store; the Arkansas Annex (also known as the Kahn Building); and the old M.M. Cohn department store. The renovated buildings will comprise Main Street Lofts, a mix of tenants including the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, the Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Ballet Arkansas and several artists and craftsmen as well as individuals in apartments. Current plans call for the ground-floor tenants to be in place by January, if not sooner.
In addition to the three buildings, Reed Realty also bought the Boyle Building at Main Street and Capitol Avenue but later sold the 12-story building to the Little Rock-based Chi Hotel Group which is planning to open an Aloft Hotel there.
"When I was growing up, there was nothing but tumbleweeds and homeless centers and liquor stores here," Robinson says. "But now Main Street has turned a major corner; you can see the energy returning. Folks like Moses Tucker [Real Estate] have done a tremendous job. The new Bruno's restaurant is packed all of the time; Samantha's Tap Room is coming. We've got a Montessori school on Main Street; we can look out our window and see kids playing in an area that was previously a parking lot."
Amid the excavation, the city's past -- buried for decades under asphalt and dirt or entombed within layers of walls -- is springing forth unexpectedly into the light of the present.
REMNANTS AND RELICS
In January, during excavation work to build the Heritage Center parking deck at 253 E. Markham St., a cavalry sword, possibly from the early 19th century, was unearthed. The land where it rested once housed prominent Little Rock lawyer and U.S. Sen. Chester Ashley's pre-Civil War mansion from the early 1800s.
"The most remarkable thing I can recall being discovered in an old building was back in about 1984 when we were renovating what is now the Heritage West building," says Moses Tucker's Jimmy Moses, a longtime real estate developer in downtown Little Rock. "And we came across the foundation of Chester Ashley's homestead."
"We actually stopped the renovation of that building, and the University of Arkansas' archaeology department dug there for three months and took thousands of artifacts out of the ground there, most of which were bottles, pieces of china, and all sorts of remnants from the homestead," Moses says. "It was quite the deal at the time."
More recently, in August crews working on a $1.9 million project to improve stormwater quality along Main Street uncovered part of downtown Little Rock's old Main Street streetcar line on the Little Rock Railway and Electric Co., dating from the early 1900s. Remnants of the old line's crossties were briefly exposed before being covered over.
Just imagine the everyday, run-of-the-mill time capsules tucked inside all those buildings along Main Street.
Robinson and Blevins don't have to. As members of the Main Street Lofts project, their current office in the Lafayette Building is dotted with found relics. Old signs, vintage bottles, historic commemorative plaques, architect's renderings and more.
"We're donating the most significant items to the Butler Center [for Arkansas Studies]," Robinson says.
One impressive item is a large, framed birthday greeting found in the M.M. Cohn building, addressed to the company's former president Arthur Phillips, dated Jan. 27, 1894.
"From all of us to you, Happy Birthday" reads the yellowed oversize parchment paper featuring dozens of signatures of former employees.
Another large presentation piece found in the building recognized Phillips for his role in bringing the Little Rock Air Force Base to Jacksonville in the early 1950s after he led a half-million dollar fundraising campaign to buy the land for it. The certificate of appreciation was signed by dozens of appreciative citizens of the time.
"Items like these are very valuable to the Butler Center for those who are wishing to do genealogical research," Robinson explains.
Another forgotten relic found in the M.M. Cohn building gave insight into earlier efforts to revitalize downtown.
"In Mr. Phillips' old office, we found a big can of film," Robinson says. "We didn't know what it was but it was an old 8 millimeter film. We had to find a projector to view it and it took several months to locate one. The Central Arkansas Library had a projector but it didn't have the right bulb so then we had to find one so we could watch it."
The film, titled One in a Million, was created in the late 1970s or early 1980s by the Advertising and Promotions Commission and featured Little Rock during that time.
"It was a very good time capsule of how Little Rock looked then," Robinson says. "It was a montage of several different images and showed the Metropolitan Tower as it was under construction and what is now the River Market area when it was just barren. We have donated this to the Butler Center." (The "Tower," completed in 1986, started life as the Capitol Tower, then the TCBY Tower and then sometime around 2004 the Metropolitan National Bank building. It is now the Simmons First National Bank Tower.)
David Stricklin, head of the Butler Center says, "It's great to have a film record of what the city looked like in the 1980s. That doesn't sound like that long ago, but then you think about how much Little Rock has changed since then. It's fascinating to see and hear what city planners hoped it would become. The film adds a helpful dimension to what we can learn from the vast number of documents we have about life in Arkansas.
"We're delighted that so many people and companies are working on adapting these great buildings from Little Rock's past for reuse long into the future."
HONOR AND LIQUOR
Then there's the stately, gilded gold-leaf World War II-era Roll of Honor plaque found in the Boyle Building, created by the Boyle Realty Co. in recognition of those serving in the military.
"We found it buried in a wall," Robinson says of the piece given to the Butler Center. "When they began adding new walls, they never removed it. It was actually found under three layers of wall. We uncovered it and preserved it."
The second front entrance to the M.M. Cohn Building was uncovered during the restoration project.
"They originally had two terrazzo front entrances to the store and we found the second one which had been covered up with concrete," Robinson says.
Adds Blevins who oversaw that particular project: "That was the most delicate jackhammering we ever did of concrete to get to the original terrazzo."
Other items discovered include the Pfeifer's store name written in tile in the basement (which was once the store's exterior front entrance).
"Pfeifer's was eventually purchased by Dillard's," Robinson says.
Then there's the old department store sign advertising short-sleeve sport shirts regularly priced at $5 to $6.95 but on sale for $3.99, a giant plastic ear and architectural drawings of the circa 1940s Boyle Building's late art deco elevators.
And then there's the old whiskey bottle someone stashed in a hidey-hole in the Arkansas Building.
But the most bizarre find discovered hidden inside of a cubicle inside of a wall? An old bottle of gonorrhea medicine stashed away inside the M.M. Cohn building.
A restoration project is merely a slice of life wherein the truth is often stranger than fiction.
Style on 10/14/2014